


The Death of Kylo Ren

by Valinde (Valyria)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Not Beta Read, Self-Indulgent, Spoilers, inappropriate use of windows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 01:19:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valyria/pseuds/Valinde
Summary: “Your name,” Rey prompts him again, “The one your mother gave you, the child your uncle betrayed, the boy your father loved. Tell me your name.”And suddenly the lie will not come so easy, because he remembers now who had last touched him in kindness before her, does not know how he could have forgotten.The boy your father loved.It was his father. And it was not Kylo Ren who Han Solo had embraced, and accepted death from with nothing but love in his eyes.





	The Death of Kylo Ren

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate take on the aftermath of Snoke's death. If Rey/Kylo squicks you, skip this one.  
> **wildly unbetaed and unedited**

Snoke’s throne room is cold and silent, but outside the First Order’s flagship streaks of laser & cannon fire lit up the darkness of space.

The force stutters as another resistance ship explodes, taking dozens of traitors with it, a flare of yellow light in the corner of Kylo Ren’s eye. He pays it no mind, but Rey flinches, the movement almost lost amidst her wide-eyed struggle, all rage and desperation.

Kylo Ren feels it though, the way the violence snarls the force and jars the young jedi.

She stares right at him, this daughter of nobody, pleading. As if she has the right. Abandoned outer rim trash. He had thought, _(Snoke had thought_ ), she must be somebody _._ Blood of consequence. Descendant of a survivor of the old Republic, a jedi strong enough to evade Vader all those years. But no, Ren is just an ordinary force sensitive child born to back water junkers. The brown eyes boring into his own were completely unfamiliar, unremarkable.

And yet... The connection to her, his master’s ploy to ensnare her, he can feel everything through it. All she feels. And that makes it very hard to dismiss her. That is why he can not look away. She’s desperate, dismayed at Snoke’s strength and the slow death of her precious rebellion playing out in the distance. There’s anger, of course, but that isn’t the feeling that is consuming Rey in this moment, the feeling that is holding Kylo Ren transfixed.

She hangs there at the mercy of a man who has tried to kill her and who _has_ killed her friends ( _father),_ with a Sith Lord at her back narrating her prophesised death, and yet Rey is completely certain that _he will save her_. Will turn against his master, turn back to the light.

It makes no sense. He is conflicted, has always been conflicted, but he has no intention of betraying his master. After all he has done, _(father),_ there is no path back for him.

Behind her Snoke radiates smug satisfaction. “Igniting his lightsaber...” the Supreme Leader of the First Order is saying, savouring his power over the last jedi in her final moments before death. Gloating at his control of her, and of Kylo Ren, two puppets dangling from his strings.

He makes no choice, there is no sudden decision. Kylo Ren stares into Ren’s eyes, awash in her unwavering faith that he will save her,

“...And striking down his true enemy!”

And then it is done. He has betrayed his master. Pale blue blade of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber searing through Supreme Leader Snoke. Darth Plagueis. Kylo Ren had made no plans, had not _(yet)_ plotted in secret to overthrown his master, but now that it is done, he feels power unlike anything he has ever before. Righteous strength. He meets Snoke’s disbelieving eyes as he chokes on his own blood, and calls the ignited blade back to him, cutting his master in two.

Rey, released from Snoke’s power, falls to her feet, gasps and claws at her throat for a moment chasing phantom hands. When she looks up there is no shock, just acceptance, gratitude, and most heady of all, pride. Snoke is dead, but whatever bond he forged between them remains and through it Kylo Ren feels Rey’s pride in him. It is as heady as it is strange.

There is something welling between them, a pressure that feels inevitable. But before it can take form, Snoke’s red guards attack. Rey falls in at Kylo Ren’s side immediately, guarding his back and leaving him to guard her own.

Again Kylo Ren is shocked.

She trusts him.

She blocks an attack meant for him.

She protects him.

The guards are force sensitive, well trained, and carefully armed. To a trained jedi they are no threat and Kylo Ren knows he can best them all easily, but Ren is untrained and the thought of her dying now, after all this, is... unthinkable. The fight takes longer than it should with his attention split, and Kylo Ren finds himself disarmed.

She throws him her lightsaber, no hesitation, leaves herself unarmed and vulnerable.

_She trusts him._

Before the last guard falls dead at Kylo Ren’s feet, lightsaber burn cauterised through his skull, he is already forgotten. Rey’s eyes have caught his again, and this time there is no sudden violence to break the strange connection. The room stinks of blood and burnt meat. The man who has been master of Kylo Ren’s world since he was 14 years old, is spilling his intestines onto the floor.

But it is silent. And Kylo Ren cares nothing for the past anymore. Free of the pain that has haunted him for years since Snoke came and took him from the Jedi, saved him from the uncle who thought to murder him in his sleep.

Snoke never taught him his methods for divination, but Kylo Ren can see the future now, feel the potential of this moment, how his choice here will shape things to come.

Behind him is the throne.

In front of him is Rey.

The greedy child in him for a moment thinks to claim both, but he knows Rey in way that shouldn’t be possible, can feel parts of her that should be hidden. He knows she will never stand beside him if he sits on Snoke’s throne. Not as she is. He would have to destroy her first.

He’s not sure what he would have said, unsteady and yearning in that moment, all his desires right there within arms reach, had she not spoken.

“Ben.”

A name. The one she insisted on calling him. A prideful child, a murderous son. Perhaps she can feel all that the name evokes within him, because she reaches out her hand. Implores him. “Please, Ben.”

What is she asking? He thinks perhaps she is asking everything, which is why she says nothing at all. Leaves it all there in the silence between them.

He cannot look away from those wide eyes of hers, but his feet feel like stone, immobile and behind him the throne throbs like a silent drumbeat. A slow rhythm. Calling him.

A ship explodes, the force shuddering with the violence of it. Rey’s hand falters between them, and she lets out a gasp of pain. He’s stepped forward, quick even strides, before he realises he’s made his decision. Her hands are cold and her body feels too small, almost frail against his, but that is not the truth of her. In the force she is all strength and searing light and it burns to be so close to her.

How long has it been since he has held someone? Touched someone not in violence? He cannot recall. He had forgotten this feeling.  Warmth from another body, the scent of another’s skin, clothes, sweat. The feel of breath and a beating heart not his own. He cannot breathe. He pulls her close, crushes her to him. Wishes he could pull her beneath his very skin so-

“I’m here!” she says, her voice distraught. “I won’t leave you in this place!”

For a moment he’s taken aback, ashamed that as he has felt her strength and faith, she feels all his weakness. He hears Snoke’s voice, _‘Lonely, stupid, little boy_.’ He pulls away, familiar anger rising in him like a red flame, ready to lash out. But she follows, up on her toes, little hands grasping at his hair and when her lips find his, clumsy but sure, the hissing dragon in his heart is doused like a wet flame. The thing that rises up instead is just as strong, but it doesn’t hurt. A kiss, intent but almost chaste, then she backs off and meets his eyes, unsure for the first time since she brazenly arrived on Snoke’s flagship. He blinks at her for a moment, sees the way she flushes pink where she had been so pale, and thinks;

_Yes. This._

“Rey,” he says, and she is so much more than those three letters, than the meaningless, nothing, name that her worthless parents left her with when they threw her away on Jakku. In the force he feels the light of her flare up in heat, and knows that he has no need to say any of that to her in words.

He pulls her up, closer, and she meets him halfway.

Uncertainty pushed aside, the kiss is not chaste or soft. She tastes like salt and when he kisses her deeply, gets inside her, the soft heat of her mouth is shocking compared to the cold of space. In this, as in everything else, she is insistent and stubborn, biting at him and pulling his hair to find the angle she wants to slant her mouth over his, pushing herself up against him. He drops the lightsaber because he needs both hands, needs to be able to tilt her head to one side and put his mouth to the side of her neck, taste her there, hear her moan at the press of his teeth.

For the first time in years Kylo Ren’s mind is clear, at ease, free from pain and conflict. Around him, through him, through _them_ the force is thrumming with how right this is. “Ben,” she says, and it doesn’t feel like an insult, doesn’t grate up his spine. Feels almost like his name.

He’s not sure how long they kiss, long enough that Rey’s sucked a mark under his left ear to match the one on her neck, half undone his robe in her attempts to press her hands to as much of his skin as possible and rendered his lips almost numb.

He’s never wanted anyone as much as he wants Rey in this moment, never felt desire reflected back at him through the force in such a visceral way, and he knows that were they anywhere else except a throne room decorated with half a dozen cooling corpses, he would be inside her by now. Her fingers twist in his hair and she moans into his mouth, having caught some echo of his thoughts through their bond and he feels her agreement. It’s enough to drive him half-mad for a moment, have him picking her up and pressing her into the nearest viewport just so he can shove his way in between her legs and let her feel how much he wants her. Her thighs clamp around his hips and she arches into the desperate grind of his body against hers.

He’d thought about it, of course, Rey being young, attractive and the focus of his attention, it would have been strange had the thought not crossed his mind. But back in the start he’d imagined hurting her, or making her want him as a means to break her. And then later he’d realised that wasn’t what he wanted from her, so he very carefully didn’t think on it at all. But when he did, when he was half asleep and lost control of his thoughts, when he remembered the impossible touch of her hand on his across light years of space, it was not like this. Desperate teenage fumbling.

She’s rendered him powerless simply by wanting him. There are layers of clothing bunched up between them but he can’t stop rutting into the heat between her thighs in some ingrained animal instinct to mate. It occurs to him that she would give him magnificent children. The force seems to sing in his veins in agreement. _‘Ridiculous.’_ He hears Snoke again, mocking ridicule, _‘Pathetic little boy.’_ A part of him is grateful, the shame he feels at that is much needed cold water.

Tucking his head into the warmth of her neck, he’s finally able to still himself against mindless need. “Rey.”

Through the transparisteel over her shoulder, he glimpses another fleeing ship explode a moment after he feels it through the force. Rey flinches in his arms and the addictive heat of her that had been so focused and intent upon him, dissolves. She gently but firmly disengages and steps away from him, her face flushed and breathing rough. Immediately Kylo Ren wants her back.

“Rey...”

She ignores him, turning and settling her hands on the transparisteel window, staring at the remnants of the rebel fleet, at the unrelenting turbo cannon barrage.

_Her friends are dying._ He feels the distance between them stretching, feels again that ominous crescendo in the force as a wave rises to crest and sweep them away from this place to some distant purpose. A choice. Fulcrum.

This one at least is simple.

Her friends are dying, but he can stop it. Can stop her pain.

Now that Snoke is dead it’s almost easy to admit to himself that Rey’s is important to him, that he _wants_ to protect her.

She inhales sharply as he comes to rest directly behind her, caging her in between himself and the viewport. Below them the forward ion cannon battery releases a volley of orange fire, headed directly for the rebel ships. Without a thought Kylo Ren stretches a hand out towards the cannon fire, reaching out into the force and knocking the barrage off course, dozens of rebels he cares nothing for, saved purely to please her.

It’s easier than it should be, than it would have been half an hour earlier, before Rey had confronted the Supreme Leader, before she’d convinced  Kylo Ren to betray him without saying a word. The ease of it, his new found strength is intoxicating, and Snoke’s throne beckons, but he can still taste Rey on his lips, and in the force he feels it once more, her pride in him for doing what she deems to be ‘right’.

Her fingers close around his still outstretched arm as the ion cannons glow again, preparing for another discharge. He feels her strength in the force, silently tugging at him, asking him to intercede once more.

Kylo Ren does one better, he presses himself against the line of her back, takes her outstretched hand properly in his, and then guides her through the force, aims that that untamed power of hers right at the huge glowing cannon. Again, it far easier than it should be. It’s effortless, as if her strength is an extension of his own.

“The power – the ion charge build up – you feel it?” he asks quietly, wisps of her hair tickling his lips where he is pressed in close to her.

She swallows.  Outside the glow grows, seconds from a full charge. “Yes.”

“Grab hold of it,” he instructs, clawing his fingers in demonstration, “and _crush it_.”

He feels her hesitation, “Now,” he says, “Before it’s too late.”

There are only a handful of ships left.

Rey’s hand clenches in his own and in front of them the ion cannon battery erupts. A moment later the ship shakes under their feet.

Rey turns to look at him, fear in her eyes for the first time. What ever spell they have been under is well and truly lifted. She would not welcome his kisses now.

He knows what she will ask him now. “If I go with you, the war won’t end,” ge says. “All this, it won’t matter. Snoke had plans in place. The war council, his admirals, the old grand moffs. Power, wealth, they will keep going until there is nothing left for them to take.”

“But he’s dead!” she insists.

“I killed him, you gave me the strength to do that at least, but the First Order didn’t die with him Rey. If we run now, someone else will slip into the hole he’s leaf, take up High Command of the First Order and hunt down the resistance until none remain. The war will go on.” He’s being honest, but she can tell his doesn’t really care about the resistance, hasn’t cared about anything or anyone for a along time. “You’ll die,” he tells her, “Or live a life so hunted and alone, that death might be a kindness.”  
“Then what?” Rey asks, “We destroy the entire fleet? How many indentured soldiers are there on-board, how many stolen children forced to fight for the First Order?”

Kylo Ren feels her anger at the issue, it’s personal. The stormtrooper he remembers. Plasma’s boy. The one that fought his conditioning. Admirable, if infuriating. “Thousands,” he tells her. “And not just stormtroopers like your friend, many of Snoke’s officers and technicians have families held hostage.”

She turns back to the viewport, at the fleeing remnants of the resistance fleet. They are out of range of the smaller ships, but Kylo Ren can feel the ship slowly reorientating beneath their feet, turning to bring the undamaged port batteries into range. Up ahead the Resistance Heavy Cruiser has turned as well, her engines spooling up for a hyperspace jump. Before he can try and asses the situation properly however, the doors to the throne rooms slide open with a hiss.

Sensing the identity of the intruder on their solitude, _(Hux),_ he quickly calls both lightsabers to himself. Anakin Skywalker’s blade, his birthright, comes easily this time, but he finds he has no difficulty palming it over to Rey. She clutches at the hilt white knuckled.

“Help me end this,” he whispers to her as Hux stumbles inside, taking in the carnage around him. “I cannot do it alone.” Will not he means. It is too hard.

“What is the meaning of this!” Hux demands.

Kylo Ren meets Rey’s searching eyes for a moment more, then steps away from her and schools his face to smoothness, wishing for the anonymity of his mask.

Hux is staring at Snoke, or at least, the sad remains of the former supreme leader. “What have you done!?” he snarls, turning upon Kylo Ren, all _(rightful)_ suspicion and damnation.

“The Supreme Leaders’ guards betrayed him. An assassination plot,” Kylo Ren tells the General blandly. “It was already too late when I arrived with the girl. However as you can see I have avenged  him. The traitors have paid for their cowardly attack.”

Hux sneers. “You stand here with a _jedi_ and expect me to believe that!”

“The girl came to us. You know that. The Supreme Leader sought to train her.”

Hux opens his mouth, no doubt to scream some more, when the ship shudders violently around them. Death rings out across the force and the viewports light up with destruction. Rey has turned her back on Hux and Kylo Ren to stare out at it, her lightsaber loose and forgotten in her dangling hand. Her remaining friends will make it safely to the nearby planet it seems. The only reason they are still alive is dumb luck and the sheer size of the flagship. As Kylo watches, a third of the ship drifts  upwards and away, as neatly bisected as Snoke was with Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber.

“The Resistance Heavy Cruiser,” he says, realising what has occurred and turning to Hux “Did your men somehow miss it preparing for hyperspace jump General?”

“It was empty,” Hux says, “A distraction...”

Kylo Ren sneers. “An effective one.” He hooks his lightsaber onto his belt and straightens his shoulders. “General, have the fleet stand down and focus on repairs and stablishing what remains of the fleet.” Outside the viewport, and far to close for comfort, half a star destroyer – the _Harbringer_ Kylo Ren thinks, takes out a frigate in a fresh explosion of death and fire.

At the order Hux snaps back to himself. “Who are you to issue orders to the First Order?” he demands. “The Supreme Leader is dead and _I_ am General of the fleet! I am in command here-“

Kylo Ren doesn’t need to hear anything more. He strikes out with the force like a snake, lifting Hux off his feet and crushing his windpipe, not enough to permanently damage, but enough to scare him. “The Supreme Leader is dead!” he yells, and finally it dawns on Hux that the only reason Kylo Ren has not killed him before this is because Snoke did not let him.

He chokes, face pale and sweaty, fear and hatred dripping off him. “The Supreme... Leader... is dead,” he agrees, “Long live... the Supreme Leader!”

Satisfied Kylo Ren drops him to the floor.

“You have your orders General Hux,” he tells him. “Leave us.”

Hux scrambles to his feet, wheezing and coughing, “Yes, Supreme Leader,” he says. Bowing once and then hurrying unsteadily from the room.

Kylo Ren watches him until the door hisses shut once more.

He can feel Rey’s shock and disapproval at his behaviour. It beats at him in the force. He longs for the effortless peace there had been between them just minutes earlier. When anything had seemed possible.

“I am no jedi,” he says, then turns to face her.

“I know that!” she hisses.

He can’t help it, “Did you forget?” he asks, cruelly.

She stands up straighter, and he feels her gather her armour around herself, close herself off in the force, prepare to leave him. He closes the distance between them and grabs at her shoulders, forces her to look at him. “Wait no!”

She frowns, but hesitates.

“I’m not used to this,” he tells her, a feeble excuse.

“Used to what?”

“Having someone, who is not... an enemy.” That isn’t exactly right, because, she is an enemy, or was an enemy, will be an enemy, but it is as close as he can explain.

“You want it though,” she says. “The power, his _throne._ You liked hurting that man.”

“Armitage Hux is a murderous insect and the galaxy would be better of without him,” he tells her. “He doesn’t deserve your pity.”

She purses her lips and tries to shrug him off. “Let go of me, I’m leaving.”

After a moments hesitation he relents, lets her walk away from him. She heads directly for the emergency escape pod hidden off to one side of Snoke’s throne, an escape she had probably plotted the moment he escorted her into the room. Again the force beats at him, insistent, demanding he stop her. “I won’t stop you,” he calls. Even though that is perhaps a lie.

She pauses for a moment but doesn’t turn around.

“But if you stay I will listen!” he tells her. “I will try!”

That has her pause, the force seems to freeze, take a deep breath as she looks back at him. “You will try and what?” she demands harshly.

 “I cannot be a jedi for you,” he tells her, “and Ben Solo has been dead so long, I do not think I can bring him back, but... I will try. For you.” She is hesitating, he sees it, and in that moment the force grants him another glimpse of the future, of possibility. Something even better than Snoke’s throne – with Rey at his side he sees himself a god, not just feared, but worshipped. Founder of a dynasty to bring peace for a thousand years.

Her face changes, and Kylo Ren thinks she is seeing something too, though what he cannot say. “You will kill Kylo Ren for me?” she asks, and her voice is strange, as through she’s far away.

“Yes,” he promises.

She crosses back to him, ignoring the corpses scattered around the room and the burning fleet around them. “Do it now then,” she says, placing her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to meet her eyes, though he would not have looked away even if he could. _“Kill him.”_

And what does she expect? He cannot simply snap his fingers and do away with decades of history, of choices and lessons ingrained with bright agony. “I.. I can’t,” he says, fumbling. “I don’t know how.”

Rey calms all of a sudden, like clouds parting for the sun, “Tell me you name,” she asks him, sweetly.

And oh, this is too easy. A lie? A simple lie is all it will take to win her to his side? Kylo Ren is almost disappointed.

“Your name,” she prompts him again, “The one your mother gave you, the child your uncle betrayed, the boy your father loved. Tell me your name.”

And suddenly the lie will not come so easy, because he remembers now who had last touched him in kindness before her, does not know how ne could have forgotten.

_The boy your father loved._

It was his father. And it was not Kylo Ren who Han Solo had embraced, and accepted death from with nothing but love in his eyes. It was-

“Ben,” he says, and does not recognise himself. “Ben Solo.”

**Author's Note:**

> I may add more to this, but for now it's a one shot.


End file.
